Things I’ve been enjoying the heck out of lately:

• Season 3 of Big Love
• Making beans in the crockpot
• Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family by Ellyn Satter (I don’t ever read books like that, but Dawn’s First Guest Blog Series Ever introduced me to Katja Rowell M.D. and the Satter book. Life changing, for real. Check it.)
• My kids wrapped my birthday presents in a Twilight movie bag, knowing that I would love to opportunity to deface and destroy it. (We all hate Twilight for its abusive relationship marketed to young girls as romance). Smart and funny kids=best birthday present ever.
• Saying “heck” whenever I can, affecting Bill Henrickson’s look of confusion and/or horror:

I love that Bill would say, “My gosh, just what in the heck do you think you’re doing?” even if he were witnessing a murder.

What are you enjoying right now? Let’s get reacquainted!

I’m really embarrassed. I watch this show called Metalocalypse. There, I said it. I don’t just stumble across it and watch it when I happen to notice that it’s on. No, I willfully set my DVR up to record it and every time I look at the list of recorded shows, I get a little happy when I see it on there. A lot happy.

I keep trying to write up a defense of why I like it, but it might be indefensible. It’s violent and filthy. But it has really good subtle humor, too, and I swear that’s why I like it.

*sigh* Now you know. I have nothing to say on my behalf. I just spent way too long watching way too many clips in order to share some with you. And I enjoyed it. And I might watch some more.

“And here’s my guitar made from the wood from Christ’s cross.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5_BXQHb4fI

“An apple! God’s alcohol!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYqArjs_L4M

“I’ve got my mother’s nose. In my pocket.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgKE404A-kc

It’s Feckless Friday. Please play along so I have something to distract me from more Metalocalypse clips. Blog it, Tweet it, Facebook it, but don’t put it on Myspace because nobody goes there anymore. Not even me. See? I do have some standards.

As with all things lately, infoMania saved my sense of humor. The night that I finished my review and had my crisis of identity, Conor Knighton introduced me to a TLC show called “I Didn’t Know I was Pregnant,” complete with a re-enactment of a mom who thought she was constipated, took an enema (prescribed by her frickin’ doctor. Seriously, he couldn’t be bothered to do a little palpation?), then had the, ahem, movement of her life. You can tell it’s the crap of her life because her husband is standing in the doorway of the bathroom the whole time. The day my husband stands in the doorway while my bowels are moving better be the day I move into a nursing home. When she’s done, she’s all, “Whew, I didn’t think I was gonna make it,” and her husband is like, “Way to go, sexy!” And then we hear a little mew and she says, “Did you hear that?”

*spoiler alert*

You guys, her baby was in the potty.

PS What is wrong with TLC?

So infoMania showed me that and then they showed me this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To2XSGRr0BE

And I laughed so hard, I thought I might give birth but I knew I wasn’t pregnant so I thought maybe I would just poo. Thank you infoMania! The best part is Sarah Haskins’ bit at about 59 seconds in. Also, when the announcer gives a promo for 2 other TLC shows, I get the feeling that those were both working titles for some TLC shows that are on the air right now. Seriously, TLC, what is wrong with you?

Turns out, I’m still immature; I just didn’t like that book. Yay!

I’m taking my immaturity on the road today in order to share it with my mom and my brother and his family in West Virginia “only 8 miles in from Maryland,” as my brother likes to say when I tell him my friends fear for our safety on West Virginian roads. My sister-in-law, Tracy, is the queen of poopy humor and they have 3 sons, so I’ll be in good company. She and I are going to run a 5-mile race on Saturday in MARYLAND, while my sister, Tracey, and her friends run the Crim 10-miler in Michigan. Good luck, everybody! And remember what you learned today: If you have cramps, don’t risk gassing because you’ll probably poo!

Speaking of proselytizing, I gave up Twitter. I thought I maybe didn’t need both Twitter and Facebook, but I was wrong. Facebook is different and, until Michael Ian Black friends me on Facebook, I still need Twitter. I don’t have words to say how it’s different because I haven’t run yet this morning so there are still cobwebs in the shape of snowman Jesus in my brain, but it’s just different. Twitter has more back and forth and stuff. I don’t know. I like it. And even when SuperNews made fun of it, I missed it. I felt bad about myself, but I missed it so I’m on it again.

Alright, cobwebs are becoming more cobwebby so I have to run now. I’m putting it off today because I really, really need new shoes. I’ll get them today, but I have to run one more day in my old ones.

Just remember, kids, Snowman Jesus hates global warming.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-Omm5CPIOI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocIhpOYXAMI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9Xt1DyJZso

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQHvbVsD9NQ

Ho hum. What else? The house? The house’s roof is leaking right where we thought it might leak, so it’s good that we made the seller give us money to fix it. And also? Also, there are mice in the bread drawer. Consistently in the bread drawer. Bryan killed one with a dustpan. It was caught in the trap, but struggling to get free. He had to do it. I don’t want to know how many more there are, but our cat better get on the job. I’ve been getting good mouse-killing tips over at Facebook, but I wonder if I should just maybe make the drawer into a cage and move the stupid hamster in there too. I can’t win against these rodents.

On the bright side of the house, there’s room! And the basement is a walk-out! And it’s finished! And we can send the kids down there when they’re being too loud! Or we can have them on the main floor with us when we feel like tolerating the loudness!

Other than that, we’ve just been unpacking and working on things (I may have an oven tomorrow!) and yelling at Vonage over releasing our phone number in a timely manner so we could switch carriers. Lena found it particularly entertaining when I yelled at them on the phone. Mommy was very mad and the bad lady on the phone was lying to her and trying to trick her into not switching carriers. The bad lady wants Mommy to keep wasting her money on terrible, terrible phone service and so she had to yell at her. And file a complaint with the Public Utilities Commission. It felt good. But we still won’t have our phone working until April 16th. And I don’t even believe that it will work on that date.

Right this minute, Bryan is trying to get our new tv hooked up and he’s having troubles. My nieces are here visiting for the week and Taylor (the 15 year old) had to tell him to push a button and also to plug something in. Both tips helped, but he’s still having trouble. He’s wearing a head lamp thingamajig and it just occurred to me that the head lamp may be the perfect book light for bedtime reading. I’m going to steal it. And if he says, “Hey, isn’t that my head lamp thingamajig?” I’ll just look straight at him and blind him with the light. It’s ok because I’m always searching for the perfect book light.

I wanted to watch Slumdog Millionaire (I would watch it over and over and over again. Good movie.) with Taylor and our new tv, but Bryan’s still working on it and Taylor fell asleep. Because it’s boring here with no tv and an uncle who walks around with a head lamp on all time.

Maya’s sleeping and Riley (11 years old), Lena, and Liberty are in the basement rec room watching The Boy in the Striped Pajamas again. And then they’ll all hold each other and cry, I guess. They know how to party. BTW, Amazon.com just told me that of people who buy The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, 7% buy it with Twilight. FYI. I find that odd.

Ok, so another meme. sort of. The Firsts meme that’s going around made me think of the first time I was in a wedding and the first time my daughters were in a wedding and the fact that each of us was 4 years old for our first trip down the aisle.

I was in my Aunt Becky and Uncle Hal’s wedding with my 2nd cousin, Jarod, as the adorable ring bearer. You’d be hard-pressed to find a cuter flower girl/ring bearer combo:

Later, I tried to strangle him:

I think his doe eyes made me feel all huntressy. And that’s my big brother on the left. Nice haircut.

Here’s another adorable combo. It’s Maya and her cousin, Hudson when they were in my brother’s wedding. We don’t actually have a pic of them together, but these two pictures really capture their personality:

Those 4 kids were cute, but if you really want to add some cute factor to your wedding, put some twins in it like Bryan’s cousin Tonya did. That shit is cute and I swear the whole congregation will gasp:

*gasp* Awwww!

Oh, you want to hear about my first alcoholic beverage? How about I show you instead:

Kidding! The back of the picture says “pop in the beer can.” The back of the picture gives no clues as to the reason for the hat on a stick, however.

He wanted me to wait to blog about it until Monday so he could make sure he is actually allowed into the building. But I’m the boss of announcing things in this marriage and I heard Oprah say that if you don’t say shit out loud, then it definitely will not happen. Consider this post my contribution to his job hunt. (BTW, the Secret works best when you got the stuff you want in the bag already.)

He went shopping last night for his new work wardrobe, and he has set a goal to finish watching the last 4 episodes of Friday Night Lights at his old “job” over the course of the next 3 nights, which shouldn’t be hard since he has watched 3 full-length movies during one single “work” night in the past. So he got his wardrobe and now he’s all business casual and 9 to 5 or 7 to 3 or 8 to 4 or whatever. He hasn’t worked hours like that the entire time we’ve been married. The most normal hours he’s ever worked were 10am to 7pm with Sunday and Tuesday off. WTF, right? I know! Other than that, it’s been 2nd or 3rd shift. Poopy. Starting Monday, he’ll wake up when I do and go to bed when I do. Obviously, this is all about my comfort and my needs. Just like everything else in our life, it’s all coming together quite nicely for me. Go Bryan!

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Fine, I can buy that the dude turned a wheel and made the island disappear, but are we supposed to forget that babies need food? I mean, Aaron is a 5-month-old breastfed baby whose mother “died” or whatever and he’s been wandering around with Kate’s milkless jugs for 2 days or something like that without so much as a whimper? Come the f*ck on. And they’re not even going to do us the courtesy of saying, “Gee, Jack, maybe we should grab some Dharma Initiative human milk substitute and chuck it down the kid’s throat.” I was so distracted by the baby’s apparent lack of hunger and the fact that they weren’t even addressing the issue that I couldn’t even enjoy the finale. Am I alone in this? Don’t tell me, I’m supposed to chalk it up to the mystical fanciness of the island. I call bullshit. I call sci-fi cop-out bullshit.

Turns out that it’s not so tough for Liberty to understand and I think she’s a little bit proud when she’s combative with her favorite people. It’s not a perfect system; we’re working on it. Both of them understood the issue in their own way until a stupid Disney channel show had the main character fighting and then making up with her best friend by saying, “We’re best friends; we shouldn’t fight.” And the audience said, “Awwww, clap clap clap,” and then Lena and Liberty panicked because that little sentence went against everything they had been taught for their whole life. But it was on tv and the audience seemed to agree! It took about 5 seconds for them to find me in the laundry room (or maybe I was napping or watching my stories on the other tv, who really knows?) and say, “Mom, should best friends fight?”

Stupid tv. Now we’ll be going over and over this in a million different ways from now until summer. And then they’re going to want to talk about my dad’s most recent divorce again, too. Don’t they understand that I tell them these things so they can discuss them amongst themselves, not so they can drag me into it all the time? I don’t understand how these things work. I’m not a healthy person! I shouldn’t be allowed to discuss it. *sigh* Stupid tv. I’m banning the Disney channel in favor of Adult Swim on Cartoon Network. There’s no mistaking the family values of Squidbillies.